20th November: Official closing of the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives in New York

The official closing of the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives (IYC), “Promoting Cooperatives Beyond 2012” will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York tomorrow 20th November. The event will highlight major outcomes of various observances during the year, as well as forthcoming initiatives to strengthen cooperatives beyond 2012. The event program consists of a series of panel discussions addressing cooperatives and food security, cooperatives and youth, and policy and research directions, and also includes an official closing ceremony, reports from national committees and a short film festival.

Dame Pauline Green, President of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), highlighted the role cooperatives are playing in Europe where they have demonstrated their willingness to dip into surplus capital to pay workers, instead of taking the short-term solution to get rid of jobs. “Human capital is a key to any business, and cooperatives are demonstrating in an extremely tough economic environment that they believe retaining people and expertise is more important in the long-term to their business success than holding surplus financial capital,” she said.